Innovative UK terrestrial TV broadcaster Channel 4 is set to improve its coverage of Rockingham's ‘Thunder Sunday at The Rock’ events in 2005.
Channel 4 will continue to feature the SCSA Racing championship in its weekend morning sports schedule and increase the number of programmes in line with the number of races during the 2005 season.
Speaking of the exciting plans, 4's Deputy Editor Sport, Deborah Poulton said "We're delighted to extend our coverage into 2005, the oval race series has enjoyed strong audiences and is a unique marriage of breathtaking motorsport and entertainment, it’s a great fit for us on a number of levels."
The Thunder Sunday at the Rock meetings will take place on the first Sunday of each month from May until October and will continue to feature top line music acts. Rockingham and the programme producers, PMA TV, have also been in discussions with both Channel 4's youth strand T4 and its music division 4Music about ways in which they could be involved with the artists to be featured over the summer of 2005."
Rockingham Chief Executive Joe Dickinson added, "This represents a ground breaking opportunity for Rockingham to establish a long term partnership with Channel 4, a broadcaster who shares our views and vision of innovation and powerful entertainment. It also enables us to develop creative initiatives across Channel 4 programmes that will enable both SCSA and Rockingham to further expand their brands and to deliver an even more potent offering to our respective customers. We will be issuing a further release with more details in the new year."
Days of Thunder Becomes Stock Car Speed Association (SCSA) Racing
Europe’s fastest race series will have a new name fro 2005, becoming the Stock Car Speed Association (SCSA) Racing. The series, which has been called Days of Thunder after the 1990 Tom Cruise film for the past two seasons, is hugely popular with race fans and families with its high speed, action packed racing.
108,000 people visited Rockingham in 2004 to see the unique combination of action packed racing, family entertainment and high profile music acts on the Rockingham stage, including Blue, Rachel Stevens, Peter Andre, Girls Aloud, Lemar and 50 Cent.
In 2004 3.6million viewers tuned in to the Channel 4 coverage shown on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
2005 Rockingham will host six ‘Thunder Sunday at The Rock’ events on the first Sunday of the month from May through to October, which will feature more racing action, SCSA, Pickup Trucks and a guest race at every meeting, plus high profile music artists on the Rockingham stage.
